The whole ‘open world, do what you want, oh by the way there’s some actual story here if you wanna play it’ model never really did much for me. It’s neat and all, I get the appeal, but I never really got into it.

So then they start talking about L.A. Noire, and my first thought was “oh good, GTA in the 1940′s but this time you’re a cop and will get shot at by bad guys instead of the other way around. Yawwwwn” and promptly ignored it. But then they started releasing the trailers for L.A. Noire, and I watched them. And then I watched some more. And then I started reading about what L.A. Noire was really going to be. A detective game, but with chases, shakedowns, shooting, and moral implications.

Then I got excited.

I’ve read many a thing about L.A. Noire since it’s come out, but the best one I’ve found so far is “It’s Phoenix Wright, but with claws” and I think that’s a very good way to put it. L.A. Noire is, at it’s core, an adventure game. You track down clues, you talk to suspects, and you try and make an arrest. That is the core of L.A. Noire, and it does it very, very well.

It still has the city-driving that GTA-lovers will enjoy, but you cant just walk into random stores and talk to people, you can’t just shoot everyone, and (as far as I know, being 60% done the game as of this writing) there’s no actual involvement of your home life. You apparently have a wife and kids, but I’ve yet to see a trace of them.

You’re also punished for running into people, smashing cars, and destroying property. Yeah, that’s right; you can’t just go flying around like a maniac, decimating the city in a manic attempt to bring it under your heel.

Synopsis

The year is 1947, you’ve come back from the war, and joined the L.A. police force to act as a beacon of hope and fortitude in this crazy city. You’re a go-getter though, you don’t just do what you’re told, but make the extra effort to make sure things get done and done right. This moxy gets you noticed by the higher up detectives, and you are told to “get yourself two suits, and get them pressed.” Soon you’re starting your illustrious career in the detective world, interviewing folks and finding clues.

Gameplay

The game splits up the gameplay into ‘cases’. You can only have one case going at a time, which I think was done to keep your head from exploding. The stories can get fairly intricate, and trying to do them all at the same time would probably kill you. Each case opens with an in-game cinematic of the crime itself, but done in typical noire fashion; that is to say that  you never see the perp, only the end result of their mis-doings.

The mechanics of the game can be broken into five sections: Free-roam, Clue finding, Interviewing, and The Chase, Intuition

Free-roam

Yes, you can drive around the stunningly re-created 1947 L.A. should you choose to. There are some incentives to do this as well. There’s all the monuments you can find (30) film reels you can hunt down (50) and the badges for those that pre-ordered the game (20?). On top of that, there are 95 different vehicles to drive, and 40 street crimes to address.

Having said that, when you are on route to a destination and a street crime pops up… well driving across the city is only fun the first time. Especially when cars don’t get out of your way, even when you’ve got your siren on. Really, most of the free-roaming should be left to the end game, so that you can find everything without worrying too hard about the costs you will wrack up at the end of the case.

Clue finding

Rockstar must have thought hard about how to handle this. The reason I say this? They did a damned fine job with it. When you enter a clue-gathering session, the music goes into ‘detective mode’ and your character walks slowly. You walk around until a small cue (rumble and staccato music flourish) when there’s something to investigate. The catch is that not everything needs to be looked at. Much of the time, they will be random items that do not pertain to the case. But if you want to find all of the clues, you’ll look over everything, like I do.

When you pick something up, you can move it around, looking for important details. On top of that, many clues can be further investigated, which can reveal even more for your case.

All the relevant clues are then logged in your little black book for use during interviews.

Interviewing

Interviewing people is an enjoyable, if somewhat frustrating part of L.A. Noire. When talking to someone, you will be given 3 options when any exchange has ended. You can assume they’re telling the truth, you can doubt what they’re saying, our you can call them on a lie. Only one of the options is correct.

If you think their lying, but you’ve got no proof, you can use doubt. That’s what this is really for. It took me a while to understand what they meant with ‘doubt.’ I thought you would ask further questions when in fact it’s more or less calling them a liar without calling them a liar.

When you call someone out on a lie, you’ve got to pick the proof that backs up your claim. This gets harder as the cases go on, because you start amassing a lot of evidence and it becomes somewhat more difficult to find what evidence backs your claims. As it stands some items in your roster never actively come into play, but sit there, ruffling their red feathers at you.

When you pick the correct answer, you’ll hear a certain piano tinkling of keys. When you pick the wrong answer, you’ll hear a different, slightly more depressing tinkling of keys. It only takes a couple screw-ups to have these sounds embedded in your skull.

The Chase

More often than not, you’ll have to run down a guilty party. They always run. Always. It’s irritating at the best of times. You either run people down on foot, which usually results in a football tackle; or by car wherein either you smash the hell out of their car and they crash, or the game feels sorry for you and eventually smashes them into something for you.

Thankfully, if you’re terrible at chasing people down (as I am with the car chases) the game will only force you to try 3 times. After you’ve failed that many times, it gives you the option of skipping it without any demerit applied to your end score. Now, I’m a stubborn bastard, so I haven’t used this yet, but I’ll admit the 2 times that the option has been offered… well it’s been tempting. I wouldn’t blame anyone for taking the game up on the offer; it lets you focus on all the other, more entertaining parts of the game.

Intuition

Intuition is an interesting concept. It’s basically a way of applying a gut feeling, when you’ve not got one yourself. In less fancy terms, you can use it for 2 things: revealing all the clues in a location (like a crime scene), or to remove one of the 3 options when interviewing someone. I should state that it only removes an option for that specific talking point, and not for the entire conversation. It also strikes out any evidence that doesn’t pertain to a lie in that conversation branch.

I’ve used intuition enough during the game, and there’s no shame to it. Some people are just really hard to read.

Graphics

In some ways, L.A. Noire is amazing to look at. The obscene amount of work they’ve done with facial scanning really shines. If they don’t use this technique in every game after this, they’re insane. It is really, really good. And that’s important in a game that bases a good bulk of itself around reading peoples faces. You can’t skimp on that, and Rockstar did anything but.

The rebuilding on L.A. is impressive as well. Rockstar has a habit of making their game environments as realistic as possible, and L.A. Noire is no exception. They pull this off by using whatever they can. With GTA, they drove around and took pictures. With L.A. Noire? They used extreme vintage aerial photography. Yeah. They found a huge stash of vintage photos taken by a half-insane aerial photographer, and used those to make their L.A. as close as they could get it. They’ve done a really good job of it, too.

They’ve also done a swell job with the cars. Then again, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, as a good part of their fortune is based on a game that involves a lot of car stealing/driving/destroying.

But then there are things that just don’t quite do it for me. Namely in the people. Despite the amazing facial work, the body mechanics have some work to be done. Everything ends up being jerky, regardless of how much motion capture they do. There are also some textures that seem really low-rez, despite the fact that so many others are super crisp. If they can capture these things, they’ll be set.

The Writing/Storytelling

When Rockstar wants to make a game as close to a film noire as they possibly could, they’ve done a pretty bang-up job. A lot of obvious care has gone into the game, and that really shows in both the writing, as well as the directing of each and every scene.

There’s not much I can say about the writing other than it’s fantastic. It’s accurate to the time (which means there is a lot of speech that lands itself right in the middle of ‘totally inappropriate’ territory with the modern day). It works perfectly for L.A. Noire though, because it’s a time piece so Rockstar can get away with pretty much anything.

Something that really needs mentioning though isn’t so much the writing (once again, fantastic), but the art direction and scene directing. Now I’ve not played much of Rockstars fare (as previously stated) but I’ve got a feeling that they usually do a good job with directing. However, I think it’s safe to say that due to the noire aspect to the game, they really had to step things up a notch.

The direction given in this game is some of the best I’ve ever experienced. I actually care about the outcomes; I care about the characters I should care about, and I dislike the ones I’m supposed to dislike. I am putty in the hands of Rockstar with L.A. Noire. The long cinematic scenes aren’t agony to watch, in fact it’s quite the opposite: I look forward to seeing them.

As any avid game would know, most of the time the cut scenes are the boring bits that try and convey a story in-between the fun bits. Such is not the case with L.A. Noire. No no, you watch these scenes, soak them up, and that makes the fun bits just that much more fun.

Music

I’ve always been a fan of Big band and the like, so I think it’s safe to say that I’m a fan of the music in L.A. Noire. But just mentioning the ambient music you hear in cars, diners, and piped through the radios of 1940′s L.A. would be a sin. It would be a sin because the actual music that was composed for L.A. Noire is really, really fabulous. It’s stunningly good mood-setting music. From the low, eerie tones of the investigation, to the fast-paced chase music, the composed music for L.A. Noire is stunning.

Issues

Despite the obvious amount of gushing I’ve been doing about L.A. Noire, there are a couple issues that really annoy me. It’s like having a fantastic burger served up to you, but then finding a topping on it, say tomatoes, that just takes away from the whole experience.

Also yeah, I’m not a fan of tomatoes. Deal with it.

Issue the first is the inability to save when you want. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this was, but the fact that I can’t save between looking for clues and then interviewing people really bugs me. Especially since I’m a completionist, and want to get every conversation right. The game more or less picks and chooses when to save, and you’ve no control over it what so ever.

Hell, lets say you just wanted to free-roam around, and wanted to save at a specific part of the city. That’s a decent enough request right? Well too bad. You don’t get the option. The game saves when it wants to, and you’ve got little control over it.

That said, I have found save ‘areas’ that seem to trigger the save ability. These are usually outside of the station or investigation areas. This of course assumes the game is going to let you waltz out of the area without failing you. You’ve been warned.

My second issue, which has become infinitely more irritating for me is the driving. Not just driving around town, which can be irritating and dangerous as it is (people don’t really move out of the way, even when you’ve got the siren on). No my issue is that everyone you chase in a car seems to become this amazing rally driver, able to pull turns that don’t make any sense. They’re obviously scripted, but there is no way my car can pull the stuff they’re pulling.

The result?

I end up smashing into cars, lamp posts, and anyone on two legs. This is not a good thing. It negatively affects the end of case results and ranking. I mean I’m not a good driver in games at the best of time, so forcing me to rally race around a heavily populated L.A.? Yeah, that’s not going to end well.

Tailing on that last one, I’ll lump my last issues together: People are too fast. Every car goes as fast as my squad car with the peddle floored, and everyone I have to run after seems to become an Olympic sprinter. This includes the 70 year old man I had to gun down, as well as the fat motherfuckers that I’ve chased all over hells half-acre. It makes no sense!

Overall

A fantastic game, and I’ll happily purchase all of the DLCs as they come out. There are only a couple issues, and I can deal with them mainly due to the fact that the rest of the game makes up for them by being totally bad ass. If you’re into detective games, good story telling, and compelling stories, I’d suggest you grab yourself a copy of L.A. Noire.

9/10

Anyone that’s in the business will know that there are some common functional elements that you end up having to build with javascript: accordions, tabs, faders, sliders, lightboxes, filters, etc. Many of these items can bleed over into non-report sites, such as intranets or even public-facing sites.

Now some of those are fairly straight forward: an accordion is just a simple animate of a content section, repeat per title; tabs? Same deal. So you might be pretty inclined to just write the script adhoc on a project to project basis, copy and pasting it as you go. We were doing that at my work when I started on, but I found that we kept on having to add something, remove something, add hooks at certain points etc. In some cases we used someone else’s plugin to do these things, but we ran into some issues when it came to having to tweak the plugin for our needs.

As I was hired on as the senior front-ender, I was given the task of trying to help simplify things in our working process. This required me to dive right into plugin development, because one spot we were spending a lot of time was reinventing the wheel project to project. Even more time was spent debugging random plugins, or lashing them together.

As my place of employment works with jQuery, I wanted to develop something that could be maintained in-house, and would be a good starting point for repeating functionality. I ended up developing a jQuery plugin template, which I am sharing today.

Now, while I can’t feature the plugins I’ve made for my work here on my site (I’m pretty sure my they’d be less than impressed with that), I feel it’s fairly safe to distribute this template (boiler plate?) to the internets. It’s a compilation of a couple tutorials, as well as my own exploration into javascript. I’d be more than happy to give credit where it’s due, but I cannot remember where the heck I got some of the snippets I integrated. If anyone reading this happens to know, leave a comment and I’ll be more than happy to give said credit.

Below you will find my jQuery plugin template code in it’s entirety. I’m open to suggestions on how to improve it, so feel free to comment.

/*
*
    Name:      my.blank.plugin.js
    Purpose:   Shell to use for jQuery plugins
*/
(function ($) {
    // DONT FORGET TO NAME YOUR PLUGIN
    jQuery.fn.myPlugin = function (options, i) {
        // This handles multiple elements (like a class selector)
        if (this.length > 1) {
            var a = new Array();
            this.each(
                function (i) {
                    a.push($(this).myPlugin(options, i));
                });
            return a;
        }
        var opts = $.extend({}, $().myPlugin.defaults, options);

        /* PUBLIC FUNCTIONS */

        /* reInit is a flag that you can pass in case you don't
           want to remove everything during the destroy phase. */
        this.Destroy = function (reInit) {
            var container = this;
            var reInit = (reInit != undefined) ? reInit : false;
            $(container).removeData("myPlugin");
            // this removes the flag so we can re-initialize
        };

        this.Update = function (options) {
            opts = null;
            opts = $.extend({}, $().myPlugin.defaults, options);
            this.Destroy(true);
            return this.Create();
        };

        /* iteration will give you the index of the item
           in the selection. If not part of a loop, I'm
           prett sure this will be null. You've been warned. */
        this.Create = function (iteration) {

            // this stops double initialization
            if ($(container).data("myPlugin") == true)
                return this;

            // call a function before you do anything
            if (opts.beforeCreateFunction != null && $.isFunction(opts.beforeCreateFunction))
                opts.beforeCreateFunction(targetSection, opts);

             // reference to the object you're manipulating. To jQuery it, use $(container).
            var container = this;
            /* Failing that, you could just use 'this' without the var declaration,
               but if you are doing a lot of child looping, you'll be glad to have
               a reference to the target object. Also, performance improvements! */

            ////////////////////
            // DO STUFF HERE
            ////////////////////

            // Set a flag to show that this element has been plugin'd
            $(container).data("myPlugin", true);

            // call a function after you've initialized your plugin
            if (opts.afterCreateFunction != null && $.isFunction(opts.afterCreateFunction))
                opts.afterCreateFunction(targetSection, opts);

            /* Make sure to return, otherwise you can't store the element in a varaible,
               which means you can't use any of the plubic functions (you may not need
               them, but it's still good practice.) */
            return this;
        };

        /* Example of a public function, this can be used if you store
           this object in a variable.

           e.g. var foo = $("#target").myPlugin();
                foo.PublicFunction();
        */

        this.PublicFunction = function () {
            // do something
            myPrivatefunction();
        };

        /* PRIVATE FUNCTIONS */

        /* These aren't accessibly externally, and so can only
           be called from within the enclosure code. */

        function myPrivatefunction() { };

        /* arguably, you could wrap your private (or public)
        functions in an array such as the following: */

        // Private helper functions
        helper = {
            firstHelper: function () { /* do something */ },
            secondHelper: function (somevalue) { /* do something with the variable passed in */ }
        };

        //Public helper functions
        this.Helper = {
            FirstHelper: function () { /* do something */ },
            SecondHelper: function (somevalue) { /* do something with the variable passed in */ }
        };

        /* Personally, I don't see the point of doing this for
           anything OTHER than helper functions, I could, and
           probably am, wrong here... or at least ignorant. */

        // Finally
        return this.Create(i);
    };

    // DONT FORGET TO NAME YOUR DEFAULTS WITH THE SAME NAME
    jQuery.fn.myPlugin.defaults = {
        foo: "bar",
        something: "else",

        // Remember: these are function _references_ not function calls
        beforeCreateFunction: null,
        afterCreateFunction: null
    };
})(jQuery);

I’ve tried to comment the hell out of the code, so that it’s as straight-forward as possible. I assume that anyone that uses this will strip out the comments, as well as any of the functionality that isn’t required.

Please feel free to use this, but If you’d be so kind as to give me credit, that’d be swell. I can’t force you, but we’re all friends out here, aren’t we?

I made the last one basically because I have an impulse to change my layout roughly once every year (or two). I was suckered into the whole pop-out style that was going around at the time, and I wanted my piece of the action. As a side-effect, The site sort of fell on its ass when certain browsers hit it. I had already given up on the layout before I had even really finished it.

That’s always a good sign.

First off, you may have noticed that the site has a bit more… character to it. I think this layout is a bit more me. At the very least, it gives viewers a brief glimpse into the borderline insanity that is my mind. I’ve removed my resume from the site, since no one actually cares about that. I’ve split the site – quite literally – down the middle. To the left are my ramblings for your continued enjoyment. To the right is my portfolio… such as it is.

Changes to the blog

So on top of having a bitching yellow background, I’ve narrowed things down. Comments are on the left (a couple styles still need to be applied there) and the main section is more narrow. This makes the page longer, but is more friendly for mobile readers, and actually is fairly readable for screen-readers. Pictures should take up the whole width of the column now. I haven’t gone back into old posts to correct them, so the wide picture thing is a ‘from here on out’ scenario.

Archive pages exist again for things like Categories, Tabs and such. You could probably url-hack the site to get the archives for dates ‘n the like, but I have opted to not include any straight-up way of getting to them. Really they’re just not that important.

I’ve also got search going again! I’m a but surprised that not a single person complained about that on my old design, despite it being a total oversite on my part. And when I did notice it, I had absolutely no intention of adding it (read: giving up on the layout).

Changes to the portfolio

The portfolio is far from complete. After talking to some designers that are far superior to myself, I’ve had some gentle instruction to rethink what I was going for. Very valid arguments that I agree with. So as of right now, it looks the way it looks. When I get done with it, it’ll look totally different. I think I may just skip to the next part, which will talk about what I did here in greater detail.

Suffice it to say that it’s currently an alpha layout at best. I wasn’t happy with it when I started, so think of the current layout as more of a tech-demo.

Code changey stuff

First off, with my running this blog in WP 3-point-whatever version it is this week, I wanted to try and take advantage of some of the new features.

Custom content types! Gone are the hackey days of hidden categories and private posts. Now I’ve got Posts, Portfolio items, and Code items (subject to change). This allows for an easy separation of content, which has made my life so much easier. It requires me to do some custom loop stuff on the portfolio page, but man oh man is it easier.

JQuery stuff! In the last eight months or so, I’ve gone from knowing a smattering of jQuery stuff (how to make plugins go… barely) to writing my own. This is down mostly to my being a senior front-ender at Radley Yeldar, and the ever-pressing advances the designers want to go for with their designs.

Hm. That sounds bitter. I’m not, actually. It’s been a great learning experience for me, and I’m happy to have the challenge. Seriously every day it’s something new. Regardless, I’ve opted to gussy up my site with a bunch of interactions based on some more basic jQuery. Some are more obvious than others. The most noticeable one is the portfolio/code area functionality.

Basically I’ve ajax-ed the whole thing so that when you enter an article, it’ll load it up right there. The nice thing about it is that the fallback for non-js is that it will just link to an article-style page. Simple but effective. The final version of the portfolio will probably maintain that functionality, though the layout will be changing. I’m not sure to what yet (I was just glad to get the layout complete enough to release), but you can assume that the final version will be stunning.

Other changes that are afoot

I’m trying to get into a more regular posting schedule, if only to train myself to stick with anything for longer than a couple of weeks. Normally on Thursdays, but recent things (like releasing and altering a new layout) sort of took over. I’ll try and do a double-post this week. Key word: try.

I’m also going to be investing some more time into varying my posts up a bit more. I’ll be doing more tech-posting, since I’m back in that world. They will probably range between ‘pointless rants’ to ‘something useful and/or downloadable.’ Hopefully more of the latter, but knowing me – which I should – it’ll probably be more of the former. I’m a bit of a bitch that way.

Anyways, I’d love some feedback if anyone has any. I generally take constructive criticism into consideration, but saying ‘ It sucks lol’ will just be met with a sage nod, knowing that the Internet is maintaining the status quo.

Putting aside my moment of Little Tim, Theresa got me a present I’d have never thought to get myself. Hell, it was a gift I would have never guessed, as I’ve never exhibited that much outward desire for it. Now unless you’re not paying attention or you’re simple remedial, I am talking about the
Amazon Kindle.

Now I would have never thought to buy myself a Kindle, because I am a huge proponent of physical books. Books can do so much that the Kindle cannot. Such lists exist out there, but I won’t start ranting about it in this post. I love books. I love their smell, their feel, the sense of accomplishment you get from finishing them, all of it. I love books, and have since I was a wee lad. So when I saw the eReaders start to come out, I just sighed gently and continued going to book stores, knowing that eventually these wondrous bound tomes would eventually go the way of all great things.

As such, I’ve never had the desire to own a Kindle. I have a reader on my iPhone and iPad, and figured that was good enough for when the physical book could not be owned. I can’t buy a lot of books here, so this is for the time being, quite the requirement for me.

So when my Kindle did arrive (January 7th, thank you very much. Next day delivery my ginger-haired buttocks), I was pleased to have it, but more because I could finally open my Christmas present. I wasn’t really salivating at the thought of owning the Kindle itself. However, since my girlfriend did spend a decent chunk of money to purchase the Kindle for me, I decided that I should at least give it the old ‘college try.’

Here’s what I have to say about it.

First Impressions

I own the Kindle 3, graphite with wifi and 3G. We decided to go big or go home. If nothing else, the fact that I have some sort of access to the Internet anywhere I can get 3G signal is, I admit, a selling point.

The first thing I noticed was how light it was. It weighs next to nothing. I’d argue that it’s lighter than my phone, and I carry that around all the time. I also noticed that it has roughly the same dimensions and feel to it as the PADDs from Star Trek. This is of course a point in its favour.

The next thing I noticed was the display. They go on about how you can read it, even in direct sunlight. This is almost true. You can read it in direct sunlight, just so long as you don’t have the sun bouncing off it just right so that it refracts into your eyes, readily blinding you. It’s not colour (obviously), which I’ll get to in a moment.

It’s got an a-z keyboard, with most of the extra keys (symbols, numbers, etc) tucked away in a sub menu. It’s a device for reading, which means that a keyboard doesn’t need to be overly thorough. It would have been nice though. I miss the touch screen of the iPhone/iPad but I understand that the Kindle isn’t an iPad, and a touch screen wouldn’t do that much for the user experience (or the weight).

There are a slew of usability options for those with bad-eyesight, or other difficulties reading such as font-sizing, changeable fonts (though only to condensed or sans-serif) and more. There’s almost an irony in the fact that they work so hard to help those with reading difficulties, but utterly fails everyone else on a number of points (this is covered in the issues section). There’s also some neat experimental stuff that I’ll get to at the end of this review.

The Kindle can also store upwards of 3000 books at any given time. That’s a lot of goddamned books for any one person to carry around. Does the term ‘choice paralysis’ mean anything? It also boasts a month-long battery life, assuming you keep the wifi off. I can’t really complain about that. Heck even with the wifi constantly on, it lasts a lot longer than I expected it to.

That all being said, there are some issue with the Kindle. Some more glaringly obvious than others.

Oh, and before we move on, it should be noted here that you can leave notes per page/book; you can add bookmarks for easy jumping; you can post quotes to mail,twitter and Facebook; and some other features that I will honestly never use. I am merely mentioning them for the sake of completeness.

Issues

Paging buttons

First up, the paging buttons. On the left and right of the Kindle are 4 buttons (2 per side). One goes forward, and the other backwards. Pretty routine, yes? One button on each side is larger than it’s sibling. Now at first glance you would think that the big button on the right would page forward, and the big button on the left would page backwards. You would of course be wrong. Both big buttons page forward, leaving the page back function to the little sibling buttons.

Now I do understand why they do this: no hand-held bias.  Hold it with either hand, and the controls are the same. That’s fine and dandy, but when you hold it with two hands like, oh I don’t know, a book, your brain gets confused. This irritates me. Basically if you read with one hand, you’re fine, but with two, you actually need to think about things if you want to go backwards.

The display

Great though the display is, there are some issues with it due to the materials chosen to construct it. You see the screen uses an e-ink technology that allows the Kindle to shock an image into the e-ink and walk away. There is no charge required to hold the image there, and this is part of the reason the battery life on the Kindle is so good; it doesn’t use much to just sit there, showing text.

My issue with the display is two-fold: first, e-ink only comes in one colour: black. you can do shading on the Kindle, but that’s it. No other colours can you have. Second, every time you have to turn a page, the screen goes all black before showing the new text. Now I get that this can be a visual queue for people, but unless you’re into your book, this ‘black flash’ can get distracting. It’s the most noticeable when you are skimming a book; it’s damned irritating, and there’s nothing to be done about it. Apparently this flash is worse on the older models. My version turns pages 20% faster! Yikes.

Speed (or a lack thereof)

The Kindle isn’t nearly as snappy as I expected it to be. It reminds me a lot of the hand-held games from times of yore. You know, the shitty little beeping things where you dodged hammers or raced a car. I’m spoiled with my flashy iDevices, so I’m used to my tech responding quickly. The Kindle seems limited in its speed due to (I think) its screen. It can only go as fast as the screen can refresh, which isn’t all that fast. It’s not terribly slow, but it’s slow enough to get annoying when you’re just trying to move around the device quickly.

The Keyboard

It’s awkward, it’s stiff, and having to access an on-screen menu for additional characters (like say, the comma or the question mark) is insane. I don’t really want to mention the horrifying 5-way cursor … thing that you have to endure.

No Goddamned Backlight

For serious? You want me to spend how much on a case to have a light? Fuck you. You could build one in and give me the option of turning it on or something. I’d have paid for that, no problem. Easily my biggest hang-up with the Kindle.

No fucking backlight, I mean seriously now. Cocks.

General usability issues

If I gave the kindle to my mother, and told her to do anything on it, the following would happen:

• Pick it up
• Look at it
• Click some buttons
• Frown
• Look at me
• Look back at the Kindle
• Click some more buttons
• Smash it against a rock and throw her feces at it like an enraged orangoutang.

The reason for this is that my mother isn’t tech-savvy. As such, things need to be made as simple and as obvious as possible without taking away from the experience. The Kindle isn’t any of this. Contextual menus don’t retain common options that you’d expect; the 5-point navigation abomination is a method of slow torture; visual queues aren’t that noticeable; and buttons that don’t do what you expect. Hell, the first thing you see when you turn it on is the manual. If you don’t read through the first 15 pages of this thing, you’re going to be super duper lost.

I read the manual, and I never read manuals.

Also, unless you make yourself some collections, once you start adding more than say, 10 books onto the Kindle, you’re going to have to start paging a lot to get to the books at the end. On that note, collection creation and management could be improved immensely. Took me a while to figure out how to add books to an existing collection.

Despite it all…

Despite everything listed above, the Kindle does it’s job shockingly well. Yes, in spite of  itself, the Kindle does allow you read a book, and quickly. I’m devouring books on this device like a fat man in a skittle factory. I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m getting right back into reading, or if the device actually allows me to read faster. I don’t know, but I’ve been using it for less than a week and I’ve finished 4 books.

for the record, yes I have a job, and no I don’t just sit there and read all day. I actually do work. I do so! Shut up, you don’t even know me. You’re not my father! You don’t own me!

Buying books through the Kindle, while a bit janky, is surprisingly easy and the 3G option allows you to get books pretty much anywhere. This will spell disaster for my bank account. The Kindle store is simple enough to navigate, and the prices are alright. Not as cheap as I really think they should be (for godsake it’s a stripped-down PDF, not a bound book.) but still cheaper than buying the paperback.

The Browser (and the other experimental stuff)

I have to tip my hat to the Kindle team with the experimental portion of the Kindle. While I have not tried everything (such as mp3 payback or audio books) the browser and the text-to-speech tools are impressive.

Now with the browser (a webkit-derived browser no less!) you have to remember that it’s black and white, and it’s on a Kindle. Basically, don’t expect to be blown away. You have to zoom large pages, scrolling around is weird, and it can crash. That said, I did manage to use my Kindle to chat to someone using the meebo mobile site, which was doable, if not entirely enjoyable. I should state that if you plan to visit Facebook, for the love of god, visit the mobile version. The main version is heavy, and it broke my Kindle. I had to do a hard-reset just to fix it. Normal off/on wouldn’t work.

In case anyone is wondering, a hard reset can be performed by sliding the power switch over and holding it there for at least 20 seconds.

The voice-over tool actually impressed me. While not as smooth as Apples text-to-speech AI voice actor thing, the Kindle does a decent job not sounding like Steven Hawking on a bad day. I don’t know if I could have an entire book read to me in that voice, but it is far better than I expected.

Overall

I’ve learned to like the Kindle. I don’t think I’ll ever truly love the device, but I’ll probably miss it when it goes away. It does its primary job very well, and web browser doesn’t totally suck. There are som obvious issues with the usability that hopefully will be removed in later iterations of the Kindle.

6.5/10

I hope you’ve found religion, because I’m going to start doing this more often. What does this mean? This means that Corey is finally getting off his lazy god-damned-ass and is going to start writing words in sequence again.

Now if you put these sequenced words together, you will find that they make sentences. These sentences, when grouped into logical sections well, they become paragraphs. If I can actually manage to put enough of these words onto a page, you could actually become entertained by what may be considered an editorial, a review, or a terrifying essay about clowns that live within your closet, just waiting.

What was I talking about?

Right, connecting words like Dr. Frankenstein. Science!

Anyways, lets move right on to the obligatory ‘whats new with me’ section.

So first off, I’m still alive and still living in London. The weather has become somewhat colder and it’s humorous to see the Londonites becoming terrified by the impending snow. I mean good lord, they could get a whole couple of cm. The world is coming to an end, one snow flake at a time. I, however, am handling the weather fine because as you know: I’m not a total little bitch. Update: It has been snowing all day, and my co-workers are all a cringe.

I’m still working as a front end developer for the rather snazzy Radley Yeldar. Actually, I may have not actually mentioned that in my old post. I’m too lazy to actually read my last post, so just to set the record straight; I do that now, and have been for at least 6 months.

Anywho, I’ll be the first to admit that working as a developer after leaving a job that effectively burned me right out and going to school for a couple years to become a graphic designer may seem, well, counter-intuitive. I’d agree, but given that most of my work is a: cutting up designs; b: doing a metric fuck-tonne of Javascript and jQuery stuff; and c: learning from designers far far far better than me; are all good skill-sets that I need to be subjected to learning more of.

Oh, and It’s not soul-crushing like my last job (there’s an upcoming post on that, trust me on that). I mean I actually get to go home on time (with two nights exception where I had to go home at 11 pm).

As another side-bonus, I’ve become fairly good at jQuery development. I can now develop plugins and such for the more commonly needed effects. I’ll keep you posted if/when they are released to the public. Because of this, I’ll probably end up writing some of my own and posting them here (or on github, or both!) for the world to enjoy. This isn’t a tech blog, but I’m sure some code snippets will creep their way in.

Working this job has reminded me how much fun you can actually have programming. Granted I’ll never really get too far back into the back-end stuff – we’ve got some very talented guys at RY that cover that – but learning about HTML5, jQuery, getting right into web semantics, and CSS3 is sadly exciting to me. Heck, the project I am currently working on (which I cannot talk about quite yet)  has some badass javascript to create some pretty swell user interaction. It’s taken me the better part of a friggin’ week to get it working right, but I’m really happy with how it’s turning out. When it goes live, I’ll be sure to brag about it post a link here.

I am still with Theresa, so anyone who had bets on that, pay up. Also, you guys are dicks. You shouldn’t be betting on things like that. Jesus.

Theresa has a full-time job teaching children. How she handles 3 and 4 year old children I will never know. I would probably have been arrested for mass geno..infans… toddlercide? I’d be a horrible teacher, lets leave it at that. Some of the stories she tells me blow my mind. Sometimes I can’t grasp the fact that 3 year olds can be as smart as she makes them out to me. This leads me to the realization that I have no idea about the learning speed of children. I just assume they’re stupid until the age of about 26 or so.

Oh, I’ve been participating in Movember, which I don’t really see much point in posting here since it’s the end of the month, and I probably won’t get a dime out of you. Regardless, feel free to have a look at my profile page and enjoy faces of the ‘stache. A quick disclaimer: some of them will probably upset you. My face has that power.

Now as for general website stuff.

Now you may have noticed that all pretty much all of the images are broken on the website. This was caused by a server move and something not being installed in the php build. I’ll get that sorted soon. You may also have noticed that the Twitter feed is.. well frozen. This has to do with how twitter’s changed auth, and plugin is being a bit of a shit about it. I’m not overly worried, because of the next point:  There is a site re-design in the machinations.

It was supposed to happen in September, but many things (work, life, being one of the laziest bastards I know, etc) have hampered this. Now that I am forcing myself to get my ass in gear, I’m not even happy with the design I was cooking up (please not this was design 3 that you’ll never ever see).

Basically what I’m saying is that I’m starting over on the design, but I shall be actively producing it, so it is my hope that by the new year I will have the new design up and running. This does mean that I have to learn a bit more about WP 3 but I’m not concerned. I’ll be basically rebuilding everything from the ground up, so wish me luck on that. It’s gonna be fun! Shut up, I know what fun means.Yes I do! Why are you being so hostile? We used to be buds. Is this because I haven’t posted for 6 months? No? You sure? Because that’s what it seems like to me.

Moving on.

I’m also working on a side-project or two that may or may not see the light of day. It’s sort of going to depend on if I and my project bud can get our shit together. Working with an 5 hour time difference is… difficult.

Also also, I’ve been reading, and playing more games. I swear I will bash out some review for them. First I have to get the images thing working again. Baby steps! Feel free to add me to Xbox Live. My Tag is ‘Jack Dutson’.

Until next time kids!

And remember: Only you can prevent forest fires.

Corey signing out.

That’s not kosher.

The irony is that if I had just managed to keep up with my weekly posting, I would probably have a more complete list of things that I have actually done. It’s a self-defeating cycle of suck, and I seem to really enjoy the ride. Never mind that I ride it in a busted up canoe, or that the ride takes me through a course that would make most white-water rafting professionals crap themselves just a little. I do it for the thrill.

Alright that may have sounded a tad insane, but I was on a roll and went with it.

So as stated it’s been a good 5 months since my last post, and I’ve got no good explanation for the break in content. I did just get back into school and I did start applying myself more for freelance stuff, but that’s hardly an excuse. Regardless, I’m back on the horse for now, and I’m feeling if not inspired, than at least motivated. To kick things off, I’ll give a quick rundown of everything that’s been going on with me recently.

I swear I’m not that self-involved. No, really I’m not. I am not a self-centered arrogant prat! Good god, you kiss your mother with that mouth? That’s sick man. Sick.

Personal Development

Python/Django

I am very slowly getting my head around Django. Thankfully I have my good friend and partner in crime, Bartek Ciszkowski to point out the many things I am doing wrong. I’ll actually have my first self-initiated site going up soon that has been built as both an excuse to get Python/Django experience, and because the site concept is near to my heart. I’ll make sure to post a grand opening post talking about it’s many virtues when it’s up.

Hopefully that’ll be sometime this week.

Shopify

I’ve recently been given the opportunity to work on a freelance project involving the creation of a Shopify theme. Now I’d only ever heard of Shopify through the placement ads on the Boagworld Podcasts (if you are a web person, their podcast is a must-listen). I’ve started playing with the system they have in play – very closely related to the templating system used in Django – and I have to say I’m in love.

The templating is easy, it’s fast, it works, and they even provide an offline environment in which to develop locally called Vision. Honestly these guys have done a bang-up job of making it as easy as humanly possible to create sexy store themes.

I will be doing some more work with Shopify to be sure.

Reading

I’ve been on fire recently with reading. I admit I’m not reading books 1 a day as some people I could point towards to, but I’ve been really getting into Graphic Design literature. I’m not talking about online writings – though I do follow those as well –  I’m talking about honest to goodness books. I will be writing reviews for the ones I’ve got through already, but to keep up with what I’m reading you can have a look at my Goodreads profile. You may notice a slight theme regarding social change through design in many of the design books I have read (and continue to read), which is something I feel strongly about.

I’ll probably end up writing a rather long-winded post/rant on just that topic alone.

Work stuff

GraphicRiver

I’ve dipped my foot into the could-be-lucrative-if-you-stick-to-it market of stock imagery. If you are interested in any of my texture packs, than I ask that you click this shameless advertising link and support me. I’ll actually be starting on creating some Shopify themes soon (they have a section for that), as that’s an area I’ve recently been introduced to and am in love with. I’m not expecting this to really pay any bills, but I like the idea of passive income.

Who knows, maybe one day it’ll pay for a trip. Maybe a domestic flight.

Freelance

I’ve recently been working on a couple of freelance items that should be making their way to the internet soon. I’ll hold off on actually listing them in this post, but I’m happy to say that I’m getting some more web work. If anyone is interested in throwing more my way, you can of course contact me by email or using my contact page.

Either way, my portfolio page is going to start growing; something I’ve been trying to do for a while.

Everything else

School

I’m almost done, a fact that I am proud to say. I’m chomping at the bit to get out of school and really get into the field. This being my second time through school, my attitude is very different than that of the 18 year old me. With being in my last semester, I can happily say that I’ve maintained an average that would cause younger me’s brain to ooze out of his head. This is of course only because I’ve busted my ass (another thing young me wouldn’t think possible) to get those grades.

As it works out, those who say “you only get out of it what you put in” are wiser than I thought.

Peer-tutoring and Office work continue to present me with new opportunities to scratch my chin in a ponderous but mind-blown manner. From students managing to remove their dashboard, to learning how to apply vinyl signage to interesting projects for the Ontario Government, my jobs never cease to educate me.

360

With Theresa off in England and not in England, I find myself with a lot more time on my hands. Though I have filled much of that time trying to grow my portfolio to that of “reasonable” – as if there is such a thing – as well as reading, I’ve actually found myself playing my XBox 360 a lot more. Most of my time recently has been split between Borderlands and Ticket to Ride.

Both are good, solid games, though my appreciation for Borderlands shocked even me. I wasn’t too keen on the game when it first came out, and it took repeated playings to really get. Now I’m on my second playthrough in solo mode, and I’m actually rather enjoying it. Maybe it’s just the challenge of everything wanting to murder you that spurns me on. Ticket to Ride is just good wholesome fun.

Life-changing stuff

So this one’s a little different. When I graduate, I’ll be flying over to England where, as previously stated, where my girlfriend is currently teaching children to not be destructive whirlwinds. It’s a bit of a chance for me, but I’m really looking forward to it all. The hardest part is trying to land a job or some interviews with places in the Greater London area. Those guys are good.

Regardless I’m contacting some, so we’ll see how well that goes.

Alright, so there you go; a very brief overview of what’s going on. I’ll have a bunch of events as blog fodder in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Thankfully after my faithful wait, I have been rewarded with his new release: Sycamore Meadows. After giving this album a couple of listens, it has quickly become one of my favorites for all time. It’s both amazingly happy and startlingly deep, many times simultaneously.

Track Listing:

1. The Weight Of Her **
2. Going Back/Going Home **
3. Here Comes The…
4. Ponce De Leon Ave.
5. Ships In A Bottle **
6. Vessels
7. Passed Your Place, Saw Your Car, Thought Of You **
8. The 3 Kids In Brooklyn
9. Summer Scarves **
10. A Song For The Metalheads **
11. Closer To The Truth And Further From The Sky **
12. ATL **
13. Untitled (Hidden Track)

**Clear Favorites

Once again, I’ll try and avoid gushing like the ridiculous fan-boy that I am for Butch Walker. It’s just so hard when he’s so god-damned good.

Wait, that wasn’t biased was it? Nah.

So … Sycamore Meadows. How can I describe this? Well it’s an label-free release by Butch Walker, newest in the line up (as of this post in any case). It’s far more “home-grown” than his previous stuff, with a lot more country influence than anything else he’s put out. After much consideration, I’ve opted to class this as a fusion between blue-grass and alt-rock. I’m sure blue-grass and alt-rock fans will both probably hate on me for saying that. Yes, I just said “hate on me.” Live with it.

I’ve been listening to this album at least once a day since I got it ( which isn’t as much as you’d think, as it came out in November. Shipping was painfully slow) and I have finally managed to clearly define what songs that I cannot live without, and what songs I simply cannot stand. Others require a mood for me to enjoy them, otherwise they are very quickly skipped over. I have this nagging feeling that I won’t be alone. Much like his other albums, Butch seems to have a knack for being very hit or miss with his songs. He also has a knack for making sure that these songs hit and miss differently.

One thing that has been constant throughout all of his work though, is that every track has a personal touch. There have been many a time where I have sat there wondering “did this actually happen to him or what?” The fact that I have such trouble discerning between fact and fiction only helps to demonstrate that everything feels like it was pulled from his past, dusted off, and arranged around. ATL is by far the best example of this, and the video for Ships In A Bottle was filmed in the ruins of Butch’s former home. It’s the little things like this that really help make you more than just listen to the album; you feel it as well. This is probably what sets him apart as a fantastic musical artist in my mind.

I think the only complaint I can actually have with the album is literally that some of the tracks are almost entirely unlistenable (I am very sure I just made “unlistenable” up). Ponce De Leon Ave. ranks top on my list of “cannot stand whatsoever” with “Here comes the…” coming at a close second. Everything else that wasn’t starred simply requires me to be in the right mood.

Regardless of the hit and miss nature of the tracks, I implore any and everyone who likes alternative, country, blue grass, Alt Rock, Indie, and just plain ol’ good music to give Sycamore Meadows a listen or three.

9/10

So what have I been up to that has kept be so busy over the past couple weeks that would ruin my blog ethic? School (assignments and tests alike), a side project that went public, homework, weddings and a desire to finally beat a game that I’ve owned for far, far too long.

We’ll start with school, because that’s something I do 3 days a week.

That’s right, you heard me: three whole days. It’s amazing that I have time to do anything at all. Actually to get technically it’s more like 2 point something days, since one day starts at 11, and another one starts at 1 in the afternoon. Given this impressive crunch on time, It’s a shock that I haven’t been killed by my own laziness.

Where my in-class schedule fails, my homework kicks in. The first month was, for all intents and purposes, a joke. I had nothing to do and found myself very much wanting in time-killing devices. Thankfully as we’re rounding the midterm weeks things have picked up considerably. In the last 2 weeks I’ve had roughly seven assignments, two mid-terms, and a presentation. This week offered two more assignments for tomorrow, another for Tuesday, and I’m sure I’ll have more for Thursday.

Last time I was in college, I spent a maximum of two hours on homework before declaring it a lost cause (this of course excludes the last semester where days blurred together in the mad-dash that we created ourselves).

This time around, I recognize the importance of doing ones homework and assignments (a novel concept, I know). I’ve been busting my ass to get everything done, and it’s paying off. I’m pretty sure at this point I’m running a 90%ish average. I’m going to continue my efforts, because I don’t think I’ve ever run an average this high…ever? The result of my working hard is that I have 5-6 hour blocks where I’m hunched over my laptop at all hours of the day and night. My neck despises me.

Something else that’s been eating up my weekend and sleeping hours has been rapidly producing and updating the design and layout for my friend Bart’s new live project: GameCake.

The idea behind GameCake is pretty straight-forward. If you have a game, and no where to host it, you can upload it to GameCake, describe it, provide screen shots and the like. If you’re a fan of independently-made games, The simple to use archive browsing, ranking system and overall navigation makes for a simple and enjoyable game-whore experience.

My role in the whole thing was and is to create, maintain, and update the design of the website. I’m doing my best to focus on usability and layout, making things as pain-free (for the users) as possible. Considering I rigged the entire design and layout up in a record time of about 14 hours, I’m happy with it. Now that it’s gone alpha, we’ve been getting good feedback, and I’ve been improving the design ever since.

Oh, I’ve had weddings/receptions to go to every other week for the last two months. Seriously, people need to calm down and not get married so much. Honestly some of us have things we need to do! In all seriousness though, the last couple of weddings and receptions I’ve gone to have been pretty fab. My one exception to all of this is the excessive amounts of Country music that I’ve had to endure. I know it’s your wedding and all, but what do you think the odds that 100+ people are all going to be dire fans of Country.

Finally I’ve been playing through Earthbound recently, though I’ve hit a point where I have to power level, and so I’m taking a break from the monotony to play another kind of monotony: Harvest Moon. I know I’ve talked about it before somewhere (WordPress’s search is not all that impressive), but I’ve been ever so slowly working my way through this evil game.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Harvest Moon series, and have from the SNES version. The problem is that the version that I currently have is such a bitch to beat that it boggles the mind. I would never give this game to a child, because they would weep at their own inabilities.

The premise of this game is that you have to collect musical notes to revive the Harvest Goddess. Yeah, really manly this game is. In any case, you can collect 50 notes, which revives the Harvest Goddess in under a year (a year is 120 days in game). To get the next 50, you have to sell your soul to the undead legions of the Abyss. That or you can bust your ass in vain trying to get them. I’m fairly competent in Harvest Moon, and I’m only at 75 notes out of the possible 100. I’ve clocked more game time with this version of Harvest Moon than I have most of the games on my shelf.

Insanity.

So there you go, a nice personal post to keep the site a float.

Oh! And Happy Halloween everybody.

She hangs around the
strangest kings and queens
She gets around,
but it only gets her clean
Well all the afterschool specials
of the days of your life
And all the anti-drug commercials
as your high as a kite
But it’s all just another day away
from one less day to cry

Indie Queen – Marvelous 3

I’ve always been a fan of the raspberry, with its tartness and sweetness working in perfect harmony. As a child I used to eat raspberry jam (a rare treat in my house) straight; bread and peanut butter took time to combine into the regulated sandwich. I consumed it far too quickly, which is probably why It was such a real treat in my house. In order to supply me with a constant supply probably would have required second mortgage on our home.

As I aged, my cravings died down, though I continued to have a deep longing for raspberry-esque food products. For a long time there was nothing. I am excluding the occasional sour candy that opted for mis-representing raspberries, which I would eat and then be unimpressed with their piddly attempt at deliciousness.

Then something changed. I’m not sure where or when, but something changed. I didn’t really notice at first; a cran-raspberry blend here and there, raspberry Voortman cookies. Overall nothing special. Then one one trip to North Bay to see Theresa, a Tim Hortons along the way was selling rasberry-filled donuts and TimBits. My mind was blown. Suffice it to say I bought both and consumed them, nearly vibrating with joy that the flavour had found it into the proper channels.

A little later I noticed other raspberry-flavoured foods showing up. Suddenly every drink that wanted to be trendy was including raspberries in them. Alcohol has had a recent influx of raspberry booze. Hell I’ve come across many raspberry-flavoured drinks recently in a variety of styles. Juice, sparkling, crammed full of caffeine. All delicious. I’ve seen gums coming out with raspberry as their proud banner. I’ve even found a recent influx in raspberry-imbued muffins and other confectioneries.

I’m not complaining here people, far from. I’m now living a taste bud utopia where I can enjoy raspberry in more than in conjunction with cranberries, their evil counterpart. I’m truly happy that raspberrys are finally mainstream.

My question is why? Why now, after all this time, is it becoming a normal food product? What happened to the mystery and misunderstanding that once surrounded raspberries? Did someone manage to create the perfect artificial flavour of it? Did someone recently stumble upon an endless field of raspberries trapped in a mountain pass somewhere that we are now exploiting?

I’m happy about the increase in raspberry-related goods, but I wish I knew why there was an increase to begin with.

I’m bringing this up from an exceptionally small thing I noticed while at work today. As I have previously stated, I work with SharePoint. Much of the time I am branding it (though not in my current project!) and so I have a rather intimate and abusive relationship with the program. I find myself constantly finding weird styling quirks put into the environment that prove that SharePoint was built by a large group of people.

There are many instances within SharePoint – and I’m sure within WSS as well – where certain styles that should be consistent end up being done completely different ways. I wish I had a screen shot as an example, but you’ll have to use your imagination here. Picture two dropdown buttons. When you hover over them, they glow, and a menu appears. No picture the HTML for both dropdown buttons being completely different, with no shared styles or markup whatsoever.

This happens all over the place. Hell, there is markup all over the place that is either broken, non-standard (don’t get me started on WSS/SharePoint and it’s default markup) and over 6 thousand lines of styles if you add up all the sheets. 6 thousand! There is no need for that, and yet it exists because of – say it with me now – the lack of consistency.This lack of consistency then cascades down to people like me, who are stuck styling the damned things. Had there been a discussion between the differing groups, or the markup left to a third group so that they could all be structured the same way other peoples lives would then be made easier.

Another example I can bring up is with code. My code, my co-workers code, random interweb code, it happens everywhere. It is far more frequent when you work on rapid products, or many projects that build off of their predecessor. I can speak from experience that unless you code with the future in mind you will end up patching things… usually more than once.

In a perfect world you’d be able to properly scope your work out, develop your use cases, figure out your flow, and develop in a modular, expandable way. This of course requires a couple things: Time, patience, and knowledge. I can assure you that even if you think you have all three you don’t. The only time this can ever happen is when you are developing something for yourself and even then more often than not you’re just throwing something together for your own use, and those tend to be the worst for patch jobs… at least from my experience.

In the end all I can say is plan things out. Figure out a system and stick to it; even if it’s not the best it will at least not be the best everywhere. This makes it much easier to upgrade/fix later on. If you come up with 5 different solutions for 5 different things when they could all share common attributes, you are just making more work for yourself.

Save your time, your brain, and your fellow workers from the agony of added work brought about by inconsistency. Get a game plan, stick with it, and for the love of god: be consistent.

P.S. I managed to spell consistency wrong every time in this post while writing it.

P.P.S. Except for the one in the first postscript.

Update:

Success! I have a screen shot of the dropdown menus in question!
(Technically this update happened before the post went public, but whatever)